Nothing – not cold drinks, not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of
an all-night drugstore – can undo the heat’s hold on the city.
– Stowaways
[ About Stowaways ]
Maybe we love people because they won’t let us know them.
A summer’s evening in Manhattan. Nothing – not cold drinks, not showers, not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night drugstore – can undo the heat’s hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news, his partner filling the dishwasher. That’s when it arrives. An email with the subject line: ‘From Paul Axel’. An email about a dead man from Carol – a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he’d like her to relay.
Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park Grill is agreed. Carol, fulfilling Paul’s final request, wonders how she will tell Julian of a life – and a love – he has no idea existed. A life, encased in a flash drive, containing multitudes…
[ My Review ]
Stowaways by André Aciman published February 12th with Faber & Faber and is described as a ‘contemporary twist on Brief Encounter…a tender meditation on what might have been.‘ Brief Encounter is the renowned 1945 film based on Noel Coward’s 1936 one-act play Still Life. I saw Still Life recently in the Cork Arts Theatre, brilliantly performed by the Lighthouse Theatre, a Welsh company, so on seeing the above comparison my curiosity was immediately piqued.
Julian is a young married lawyer on his way to the Hamptons for a weekend when he receives an email from Carol with Paul Axel as the subject line. Carol knew Paul Axel well but Julian only knew him in passing as an older gentlemen that he gave a perfunctory salute to most mornings in a local coffee shop. Carol and Julian arrange to meet for a coffee and, during one singular conversation, Carol tells Julian about Paul Axel. She reveals that, unbeknownst to Julian, his and Axel’s lives had become intertwined. The more Carol shares, the more Julian considers the contact he had had with Axel over the years. He thinks back to particular moments and begins to decipher more from these brief interactions, these brief encounters.
Subtle and intimate, their conversation explores the character that was Paul Axel, a man who apparently lived a life full of mystery and regret. In his vast journal Axel refers to what might have been, a different life, a secret yearning, with an overhanging sadness that permeates the air. As Carol attempts to deal with ‘the swell of grief that seized her’, she comes to realise some salient facts about her feelings toward Paul. She ponders on Julian and wonders how he will relay this strange encounter to his husband and friends. She contemplates her grief, her loss and where it has positioned her in life, considering how ‘we become those we love‘.
André Aciman is a New York based best-selling author who knows his city well. His descriptions spread like a watercolour before you with an elegance to his writing that contains so much depth. I will most certainly be choosing from André Aciman’s back catalogue in the weeks ahead.
Stowaways is a poignant and emotive story that lingers. A philosophical study of life and death, it is both reflective and tender, a bittersweet tale of longing and loss, a beautiful snapshot of a powerful moment.
[ Thank you to Faber & Faber for a copy of Stowaways in exchange for my honest review ]
[ Bio ]
André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, and various works of fiction and non fiction. He’s the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center in New York. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.
I have read his memoir A Roman Year. Very good read. This new book sounds intriguing. Thanks for the review.
Lucy I will most definitely be looking up more of his work. A beautiful writer.